NewsJun 7, 2026, 09:59 UTC

Clive Chan leaves OpenAI's custom-chip team for Anthropic

In June 2026, hardware engineer Clive Chan left OpenAI to join rival Anthropic. Chan had joined OpenAI in January 2024 from Tesla's Dojo supercomputer team — where he spent roughly two and a half years as a senior software engineer on the Autopilot deep-learning infrastructure group — and became the second hardware hire on OpenAI's custom-chip programme, working on the Broadcom collaboration to build in-house AI accelerators targeted for the second half of 2026. His title at both OpenAI and Anthropic is Member of Technical Staff.

His departure lands at a sensitive moment: OpenAI is heading towards an IPO, and its first self-developed chip is expected to reach production shortly. Custom ASICs are among the most contested hardware technologies of the moment — reportedly growing 44.6% in 2026, roughly three times faster than merchant GPUs — with Google's TPU, Amazon's Trainium and Microsoft's Maia all in the field. Losing the programme's key hardware figure to its closest competitor is widely read as a setback to that effort.

In a ‘Personal update’ posted on X, Chan said: “The density of hardware talent on that team is extraordinary, and I don't think there's a better chip design team anywhere … I haven’t been able to shake the pull to climb a new mountain from the bottom again.” The move continues a well-worn path of senior technical staff crossing from OpenAI to Anthropic, following co-founder Andrej Karpathy among others.